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Carol and Robert Harllee

Robert Harllee talks with his daughter Carol about his experiences as a military chaplain during the Vietnam War. They discuss the challenges of being with soldiers after they have been seriously wounded and are unsure whether they are going to live or die.

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Robert Harllee (RH) and Carol Harllee (CH)

CH: What was it like being a chaplain at war in Vietnam?

BH: Well, I think Chaplains have to have it firmly in mind who they are and what they’re all about that theyre there to encourage everybody to keep their fatih strong even thought they’re in the midst of the most terrible thing man can bring upon himself.

You know you talk about being with people in their spiritual journey, well when that journey is they’ve been seriously wounded and they don’t know whether they’re going to live or die and you’re there working with them, that’s when the challenge is really there. Do you have something worthwhile to say to somebody in their last moments. Many young men would be talking about their mothers. That’s the most common experience of all was that the blood would drain out and as they would get weaker and go into shock it’s like regressing into childhood almost.

It really does things to you to be there. And most of those men I had known at Fort Campbell before we ever left and the officers, I knew their families knew that this first sergeant had five teen aged boys back home and he was shot by a sniper and killed. So, those sorts of things really tend to drag you down. But you can’t show depression so you just kinda suck it up. And as long as I kept in mind that I was not there to be a cheerleader to make the guys want to kill kill kill sorta thing which is something that everybody seems to want, I was all right.